


Little Atlas

by NovelistAngel23



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6336865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovelistAngel23/pseuds/NovelistAngel23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hindsight is 20/20</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Atlas

You’re just a kid.

I wanna say it to you.

Wanna tell you when your knees start to shake as you look out into the emptiness that is the sky. The straps are wrapped too tight. They make bruises in your soft skin. Make you feel like the ache is never going to go away. When you sleep at night, you toss and turn, feeling the straps around you.

You’re just a kid.

I feel the urge to say it when I see you trip over your own feet in the corridors, because your legs are so much longer than they used to be. It must have happened over night. You don’t remember being this tall before. Yesterday you hit your head on the bunk bed, and only one person saw it (and oh how you begged for them to stop laughing, to never speak about it to anyone because you’ll never live it down).

You’re just a kid.

I have to say it, feel it burn in my throat, when you laugh so hard that milk spurts out your nose and god does it hurt. Your friends cackle, you feel embarrassed, and yet when they mention it later, you can only laugh too. It’s a little inside joke now. It’s a little scar that you painted into something beautiful. It’s a little piece of you.

As much as the training has bruised you. As much as the pain consumes you.

You’re just a kid.

With freckles from the sunlight. With big eyes and a wide smile. With girlish lashes “too long for a boy”. You cried when Shadis scolded you. You remembered your mom yelling at you for breaking her favorite wine glass when you were too curious to control your usually well-behaved hands. She cooed to you afterward, apologized for losing her cool.

No one apologizes now.

So you cry until your heart hurts. Until it becomes a bruise. A scar. That you will heal into something beautiful—because pain is an evolutionary trait, humans must learn, don’t bring that pain on yourself again.

God you’re so small. Just a child. You’re just a kid, and I wish I could tell you. Let it ease you. Wish the adults could care for you the way you should be cared for. You’re just a kid.

You’re just a kid. And I am one too.

Like a bird fallen from a nest. Strengthened from the fall. Learning to fly with wet wings and small beaks, no talons yet, but fingers to grasp, to pull yourself up from the ground and into the air.

I don’t understand why I blush when our eyes meet. I’m just a kid. No one told me about this warmth in my face. No one told me it would feel nice to hold someone’s hand that isn’t Momma’s.

Your legs are long, my fingers are thin. Your eyes are bright, my lips are smooth, unkissed. You don’t know that sometimes people kiss when they like each other—it’s not just a thing mother’s do to their husbands, to the foreheads of their children.

Late at night, when the moon is high in the sky and you remember the fairy tales your mother told you, I wonder if you know. If you know that the fairy tales are over now, and we are more than children.

Back then I suppose I didn’t know either. Didn’t know when the sun burned my skin until it peeled. Didn’t know when your eyes grew weary and your shoulders slumped. Didn’t know when callouses appeared on my hands—and I thought about how my mother would gasp and hold them close in both of hers, crying that they’re working her poor baby to death.

To death. It used to be just a saying. But now I know.

You’re just a kid. I wish I could tell you. Don’t push yourself so hard. Don’t force your feet to move when they ache. Don’t sacrifice for the good of humanity—your shoulders are too small, little Atlas.

You are just a kid.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M JUST A KIDDDD AND LIFE IS A NIGHTMARREEE
> 
> I will always think of canonverse characters as tweens who don't know how their bodies work because no one bothered to teach them--soldiers don't need to know what puberty is after all. Anyway ENJOY THE ANGST. I should probably make a series that's just canonverse drabble dabbles (ANGSTY CANONVERSE DRABBLE DABBLES)
> 
> (I think I'm finally getting back into writing after an extended block, things are looking up in that department)


End file.
